Attachment to Writing Rituals

plus recommended books by David Lawrence Morse & Kate Christensen, recommended music by Julie Byrne, and a 52-song playlist of new music

I put my MacBook Air in the shop this week. One of the USB-C ports stopped working, leaving me with only one for both power and backup. With two months left on its warranty, I trudged down to the Grand Central Apple Store (the only one in NYC that could schedule me that morning) and conferred with a Genius.

“It’s probably the logic board, and the battery needs to be replaced, too. We’ll have it back to you within five working days.”

I didn’t want to let he computer go at first, which made no sense. I had already restored my backup data to my backup laptop (doesn’t everyone have one?). The cloud has copies of all my writing and important information. Many clouds. Several redundant hurricanes of my information in 1s and 0s circling the digital planet.

Computers are tools, I live by that credo. But since I’ve started writing seriously, the ritual of working on the same machine in the same place is as comfortable as it is meaningful. After almost three years of daily use I know which keys sometimes stick, how to angle the screen for best visibility in the afternoon shade of my backyard lawn umbrella.

Uneasily, I left the laptop with the Genius and went home to its temporary replacement, an older model that doesn’t work well on its battery alone, sometimes loses its “T” key, and takes a while to start up. Then I worked on the Google Doc of a work-in-progress, thankful to have fallbacks and vowing to be a bit less structured in my writing routines. This older machine makes sentences, too, so I can be more flexible and be the better for it.

Do you ever change your writing routine? Are you a creature of habit? I’m aiming for a little of both in the future.

If you are a paid subscriber of the newsletter, I hope you enjoy this week’s playlist of new music. If not, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the work that goes into both the newsletter and Largehearted Boy.

This week’s playlist of new music:

This week’s subscriber playlist includes 52 tracks and 3 hours and 14 minutes of new music from Margaret Glaspy, Liz Phair, Hiss Golden Messenger, Georgia, Prince, Miya Folic, Nick Cave & Debbie Harry, and much more.